David Ignatius: Asking the 3 a.m. question

6:04 PM,
Oct. 5, 2012

Written by

David Ignatius

Any presidential election is in part a referendum on the 3 a.m. question, namely: Who do you trust to answer the phone and make a wise decision if the red phone rings in the middle of the night with a nuclear crisis?

The remaining weeks of this presidential campaign will focus more on the foreign-policy issues that will help Americans make the 3 a.m. decision. And it should help concentrate our minds that this month is the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous moment in modern American history, the Cuban missile crisis.

The surprising fact is that 50 years later, so many of the key questions about ...